Purpose Asia

Today I was reading a poem titled The Soldier’s Prayer by Amy Charmichael (a famous missionary to India in the 1800’s). A friend of mine had written it, and a prayer, out for me as I had left the USA for the first time to move overseas. At the time she had given it to me I had thought how incredible Amy Charmichael must have been, how much I had to live up to, how mature and advanced her relationship with the Lord must have been as I pondered the intense words of the poem. But as I read it today it struck me, that the bold words of Christian “heroes of the faith” may not actually have been the current spiritual state of said “heroes” but instead the words they penned may have instead been their heart cry, their aim, their hope. Every once in a while, I have this bad habit (or maybe not so bad) of pulling out my old journals and reading them. Sometimes it centers me and refocuses me, and sometimes it just plain discourages me. But I noticed one thing as I flipped through a ...

I pull my gloves off and toss them in the trash can by my leg. I twist the sink handles and let the water run over my fingers as I scrub them, as though I was scrubbing the stress of the day away too. I love being a nurse. Besides Jesus and telling people about Jesus, being a nurse is my greatest joy and passion. But, sometimes, stressful day after stressful day of intense medical work can wear me down. The last couple of months we’ve had an uptick in medevacs, traumas and the severity of medical situations we’re attempting to triage and treat. Everything has seemed to stretch my team, me and our combined medical knowledge and experience to their limits. At the same time, I’ve been reading about the life of David. Now there was a guy that could understand significant stress and beyond. He was raised from being a nobody to becoming a national champion and right-hand man to the reigning king, only to be chased and persecuted at every turn. Then he became the leader of an elite force...